Manipur Alliance for Child Rights: Child Trafficking: A result of failure of government schools

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Child Trafficking: A result of failure of government schools

Courtesy: http://www.ifp.co.in/articles.php
Imphal Free Press
By Keisam Pradipkumar
Yet another very shameful crime against the body and soul of an innocent child - “Trafficking in children,” strikes back in Manipur, robbing the childhood from a child. Thus making of “A child without childhood” starts off. The horrendous crime, targeting the Manipuri children is on a recurrently incremental scale. Around 200 cases of child trafficking have been reported during 2007 to February, 2010. However, this figure represents only the rescued cases. Above and beyond, local victims of the other forms of human trafficking are also yet to be discovered. Unquestionably the above data is only the tip of the iceberg as the large enough portion of the iceberg is still inside the water. So far our children, who were incarcerated in illegal children homes in Chennai and other south Indian cities without enough food, good cloths and education, were tracked down and rescued. Children narrated that they were subjected to physical and sexual harassments.

The ordeal of the children could have been lengthened for an unlimited time, if the Child Welfare Committee and other agencies of Tamil Nadu state did not locate and rescue them. Prior to it in October, 2008, five Tamenglong girls, who were rescued from Malaysia, narrated their nightmarish experiences suffered in Malaysia and Singapore under the game plan of Ricky Ho, who masterminded an international human trafficking network. The rescued girls reported that hundreds of Manipuri girls were serving like them in Singapore and being fooled by agents of Ricky Ho. Those girls were reportedly forced into prostitution. Tragedy is that, all the sporadic fuss over the scandalous incidents got lost in the mists of time, as if nothing was happened, till a next similar incident is exposed in media, that seemed to be a commonality of these human trafficking incidents. Astoundingly enough, not a single culprit has ever been awarded any exemplary punishment for the offence he or she had committed.

In the recent case of rescuing of 19 children from Chennai, two local agents from Manipur who lured the parents with false promises of giving free education were released on bail in Tamil Nadu. Any further legal action against the culprits in the home state, either from the parents’ side or police is not visible till date. In such a situation, police used to disentangle themselves saying no complaint is being lodged to them. However, past experience recounts something else, as many police stations would be reluctant to register FIR against the accused persons, but end up noting down only in diary, which does not have much legal implications. In several occasions, culprits got off scot-free and managed to get easy bail. They are much ahead of time, who take advantages of loopholes of the legislations enacted for combating human trafficking.

It is duly stated that 40% of India’s Police officers are unaware of child trafficking problem and for that mater, Manipur police would not be an exception. When police officers are to blame the parents for not complaining in time, magistrates take their turn against the police for not appropriately framing the charged sheets against the culprits under relevant legislations, that fault of police, magistrates defended, compelled them to grant bails to the traffickers. Such kind of sloppy tactics of the stake holders in the criminal justice system only offer escaping routes to the culprits. Thus many culprits still continue to engage in human trafficking, the 3rd largest trade next to drug and arms trafficking, that generates upto US $8 billion every year. Interestingly, this time too, Minister of social welfare besides the concerned commissioner and director of the state, forgot to announce any short of enquiry to book the culprits, except few public messages.

Another commonality of parents of the trafficked children would be – their economically poor condition coupled with relatively low awareness level on human trafficking issues. They had a cherished dream of sending their kids in good schools, however due to their impoverished economy they failed to pay the private school’s fees and related expenses, which they found too expensive to bear. Either they wouldn’t like to send their kids to government schools which are virtually paralyzed. In such a compelling circumstance, their minds could be easily maneuvered by the trafficking agents who offered promises of “free education, free shelter and food for their children”. We know how precarious is the condition of government primary schools, even mid day meal could not attract poor children. Surva Siksha Aviyan in the state got started with bombs only to end with peashooters; it has been sarcastically paraphrased now as “Sarvanash Sikhsha Aviyan”.

Government has announced that The Right to Education Act becomes legal from 1 April, 2010. Could the free and compulsory education for the children under 14 years be reached to the millions of children, which makes 40 percent of the total population of the country? If the budgetary size on education and health are to rely as an indicator, then the answer would be arguably negative. India allocates around 3 percent for education and around 1 percent for health while few developed countries in the world like the USA, UK and France spend around 6-7 percent of their national budgets for public education and health. How can we imagine a successful implementation of free and compulsory education, if government could not invest a reasonable budgetary allocation on education?

In India, the government spends Rs.9000 annually on a student reading in a Navovidyalaya, at the same time it spends only Rs. 846 on a child in a government run village school. How can the state ensure equity in education, if there is a sharp disparity in the government run educational institutions, leaving aside the private run institutions? India’s high sounding propaganda of its continuous GDP growth, is still miles away to give its astonishing impact in Manipur, at least if we take the stock of pathetic conditions of government schools in rural and hill areas. It is very doubtful that free and compulsory education would be much successful in the state, unless the culture of corruption, siphoning of funds, mismanagement and ill-governance are stopped. We witnessed, in Manipur the high corruption in public offices dominates over other issues including insurgency, AFSPA and HIV/AIDS. Culture of Armed violence (not armed revolution), fake encounter are the byproducts of dehumanization process and political corruptions.

Since, child trafficking is only one of the manifestations of certain larger issues such as poverty, failure of government education, unemployment, hostile social environment or globalization. We need a holistic outlook to understand the dynamics of push and pull factors around the trafficking issues. Communitization of education for revamping the failed government schools should be prioritized in Leikais and Khungangs of Ching and Tam, besides parenting education, economic upliftment and mass sensitization on human trafficking. Trafficked children need further rehabilitation and restorative process to prevent possible re-trafficking cases as well as to regain normalcy. Hope, the state authority shall definitely provide the rescued children bringing back to Imphal from Chennai and Kanyakumaree, with the facilities of trauma counselling, medical care, economic and educational support, besides taking up legal actions against the culprits, in the best interest of the children.

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THE CHILD RIGHTS MANIFESTO

Today, unseen, ignored, almost half of all Indian children under
the age of five are underweight, millions die each year of easily preventable
diseases and 8 million children do not go to school. In the 21st century, in
one of the world's fastest growing economies, this is unacceptable.

CRY - Child Rights and You works to ensure lasting change in the
lives of underprivileged children and you can help - by making your vote
count. Get our leaders to do more for children. Create a vote bank big enough
for them to hear that we, the people. demand child rights - the rights to
education, safety, healthcare, and participation.

Pledge your support and wear the yellow ChildMark proudly on
your finger.

THE CHILD RIGHTS
MANIFESTO
16th General
Elections 2014
CRY - Child Rights and You calls on all political parties to
become campaigner of rights of all children in India.

India, with about 430 million children, has the world’s largest
child population with every sixth child in the world today referring to India
as ‘home’. Although children constitute over a third of India’s population,
they are accorded a low priority in national policy and governance decisions.
CRY urges political parties and governments in power to take heed and ‘Put children first’ and include the following commitment
suggestions that can impact over a third of this nation’s population, when
designing their own election agenda.
• Harmonize the age
definition for all child-related legislations in line with National Policy for
Children 2013 where child is any person below the age of eighteen years.
• Ensure Right to
Education is fully exercised as fundamental right and Amend and expand the
scope of Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 such that: All Children between 6-14 years
get enrolled, regularly attend Elementary
school and avail quality education. Also, all children from 0-6 years and 14-18 years should come under the purview of the Act.
• Strengthen
implementation of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) such that all six services viz
Supplementary nutrition, Health Check-ups, Immunization, Nutrition & Health
Education, Pre-school non-formal education and referral services are
effectively functioning. Also ensure that there is an adequate investment
carried out in decentralized planning, universal coverage and trained
personnel.
• Reduce child mortality
and morbidity and ensure that no child remains malnourished through carrying out sustained efforts
towards complete immunization, regular health check-ups and growth monitoring,
proper nutritional support and health counselling of all children under 18
years.

• Declare access to
quality primary healthcare a Fundamental Right in the Constitution of India and strengthen Primary Health Care
systems and child health amongst the urban poor.
• Ensure Food security at
household level for all marginalized groups of people with proper implementation of the National
Food Security Act, 2013 and consider amendments (i) increasing the
protein/fat intake for pregnant mothers and children to 20-25 gms (according to
Supreme court order) instead of current provision of 18-20 gms (ii) including services such as immunization, health check-ups etc
which have been part of the ICDS as part of the Act (iii) making provision of supplementary
nutrition for children in the14-18 age group.
• Amend the Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 2012: to abolish all forms of child labour by removing the distinction
between hazardous and non-hazardous categories of work for all children up to
18 years of age.
• Invest adequately in
ensuring protection for children by: (i) implementing policies and programme that protect children from
abuse, violence and exploitation; (ii) investing in
appropriate referral services for the recovery, rehabilitation and
reintegration of victims of abuse, violence and exploitation; investing in
creating a cadre of trained professional (iii) creating robust
monitoring of implementation of child protection mechanisms, schemes and
policies (iv) creating a proper database for child
trafficking, street children, missing children and ensuring a fully functional
newly developed child tracking system – ‘Track child’.
• Ensure Gender Parity,
Social Equity, and the rights of Children with disabilities with providing equal opportunities for all
social groups – SC, ST, Minority group and urban deprived groups. Become more responsive
to needs of girl children and children with disabilities.
• Allocate sufficient
Budget for Children (BfC) allocations by
increasing the allocation from 4.64% to at least 10% of total Union Budget. Also introduce a child budget component in the budget of all
allied Ministries and ensure effective National, State and District-level
management and utilization of outlays/ budgets.

The best interest of the child needs to be put at the centre of
all policy, legislation and practice affecting their young lives. India’s one
third population deserves demonstration of commitment as a nation. It calls for
action to express zero tolerance towards violation of children’s rights so that
every child attains happy, healthy and creative childhood.

MACR- Manipur Alliance for Child Rights- Charter of demand in Assembly elcetion, 2012

1. A strong political commitment to find out a political solution in place of repressive militarisation policy, to end the
long dawn armed conflict, that has been bringing out xtraordinary denial of the right to survival, development, and
protection of all the children in Manipur, including the children living with HIV/AIDS, by repealing the AFSPA which gives impunity extra judicial powers to the army.

2. A holistic state policy for ensuring safe and secured environment, where each and every individual could enjoy the equal opportunity for economic, social and cultural development.

3. A mass employment policy for youths, providing employment opportunity within the state, not merely in state security forces but in welfare and other allied sectors.

4. Setting up of State Commission for Protection of Child Rights with the full strength of the members, free from any political interference, where independence of the commission members while providing justice to the aggrieved children is upheld.

5. A comprehensive State Children’s Policy, under which children are provided with all the entitled rights of survival,
development, protection and participation without any discrimination.

6. A commitment to announce the education institutions as completely free zone, free from any political interference, corruption, military occupation, economic hindrance, while
ensuring meaningful free and compulsory education to children.

7. A commitment for providing adequate budget for schools’ infrastructural development, with special provisions for accessing to barrier free for children with disability, creating an enabling environment, so- that teachers could attend the schools without any hindrance, adequate support and monitoring mechanism for complete implementation of Mid Day Meal scheme in Government Schools and Aided Private Schools in the state.

8. A commitment for adequate budget support for nfrastructural improvement of health institutions at Panchayat, Block and District level, accessible provisions
for institutional delivery in the PHCs with proper pre and ante natal care facilities.

9. A commitment to make all ICDS centres, accessible and functional, ensuring additional nutritional support to the Children Living with HIV/AIDS by linking with the existing
ICDS centres.

10. Commitment for timely disbursement of fund to the
Government sponsored children homes, proper implementation of Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS). Opening of Girls Shelter homes and Girls Children Homes
in the state on priority basis.

11. To set up Integrated Trauma Counselling cum Life skill Centres in all districts, for victims of child trafficking, rape,
conflict inflicted children, and other Child in Need of Care and
Protection and Juvenile in Conflict with
Law.

12. A commitment to ensure regular supply of safe
drinking water and uninterrupted power supply to every village and household, by acknowledging that without regular water and electricity supply, realisation of basic rights including right to life, right to education, right to health and development are not possible.

CRY- CHILD RIGHTS and YOU appeals to the people of Manipur on the event of Assembly election

1. Political and social stability in the state where people can be engaged in peaceful social and cultural life. Each and every individual, especially children could feel secure and protected. There must be ample opportunity for children and the youth to enjoy a happy and healthy life.
2. Children should be completely immunised at the community level. Government health services must reach every community so that each and every child can access basic Government health services.
3. Children below 6 years must be enrolled in ICDS centres and must get a midday meal along with additional food nutrient support. ICDS centres must be opened everyday for the children.
4. HIV positive children must get additional nutritional support, regular health check ups and ART treatment. Families of HIV positive children must get additional economic support from the state.
5. All children must get free and compulsory education at the community level. Government schools must be easily accessible and should have properly trained and qualified teachers.
6. Children must not be trafficked; it is the responsibility of the state to be alert on the issue of child trafficking, and ensure the protection of children at the community level.
7. All efforts must be made to rescue and rehabilitate trafficked children into society and through Government sponsored homes/institutions.
8. Children who are engaged as child labourers or as domestic workers must be rescued by the state and rehabilitated through proper legal actions by the state authority.

CRY- Child Rights & You Charter of demand on the occassion of 10th ManipurAssemble election

1. All political parties should commit to ensuring a safe and secured social environment, where each and every individual, especially children can enjoy a peaceful and healthy life; all individuals must get equal opportunity for economic, social and cultural development.
2. All political parties should commit to setting up a State Commission for Child Rights to protect the rights of children in the state. The Commission should be kept free from any political interference.
3. All political parties should commit to drawing up a clear-cut policy for children at the state level, where children will be provided with the rights to survival, development, protection and participation.
4. All political parties should commit to announce all educational institutions as zones free from political unrest, and ensure free and compulsory education to all the children.
5. All political parties should commit to allocate adequate budgetary provisions for building basic infrastructure for schools, with special provisions for disabled children.
6. All political parties should commit to make provisions for adequate budget support to develop infrastructure of health institutions at Panchayat, Block and District level. They must ensure that all children in the state can avail of free Government health services.
7. Long-term conflict has resulted in the unprecedented denial of the right to health, survival and development for all children in Manipur, including HIV positive children. The government should push for a permanent end to the armed conflict as it is one of the major reasons behind the poor access to healthcare.